Confessions of a Former Band Fag: Leavin' for Las Vegas

By Frank Anthony Polito

Since I’ve yet to cover the teenage girl/young gay boy aspect of this blog, I thought I’d plug the upcoming Degrassi: Las Vegas movie, coming to TeenNick on Friday December 14, 2012 @ 9PM ET.

I’ve been watching this teen-centric show for the past few seasons, after deciding that I wanted to try my hand at writing for TV. After writing 3 novels featuring teen characters I’ve come to realize that I have no desire to progress beyond high school – though my latest book takes place during “the college years,” I still consider the characters as being kids.

I was fortunate enough to befriend a former Degrassi writer who read a spec script I wrote about Riley’s first trip to a gay bar, and told me I’d be great for the show. But apparently in Canada, they only hire Canadian writers – unlike here in the US where all the Canadian actors/writers are freely allowed to work. Ah, well!

The thing I like about Degrassi is once a character graduates, they don’t get to stick around and hang out, slumming. For a brief moment they tried following one class as they went off to college, but it didn’t work, and they quickly gave up on the idea – unlike Ryan Murphy who insisted on keeping Rachel, Finn, and Kurt around on Glee, which I’ve since stopped watching.

With each new freshman class that arrives I worry that I won’t be able to keep watching. But this season, I’m loving the addition of Maya, Cam, Tori, Zig, and Tristan. Although someone needs to tell Joey Jeremiah’s daughter, Angela, that she’s got a look-alike running around the halls of Degrassi Community School.